[The complaint alleges] that the owner of Murray Energy Corp. made an illegal corporate contribution to Republican Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign by forcing his employees to attend an Aug. 14 rally at the Century coal mine in Beallsville, Ohio.

Brian Rothenberg, executive director of Progress Ohio, told reporters today that he would “be open” to dropping the complaint if the Romney campaign pulls a TV ad featuring several dozen coal-smudged miners on risers behind Romney at the event, or if it alters the ad to exclude the miners.

That’s never going to happen, of course. This is just an attempt to call out Romney for an ad that’s ridiculous. Which it is! But, come on. Romney’s proud of the ad. He’s probably happy to have the thing still in the news — saves on having to buy air time for it. Besides, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that Ohio will go for Obama, making the already-slight impact of the ad even less important.

The only reason we’re sharing this update is because we broke the story about the ad, as far as we can tell. We feel ownership. It’s like when your kid wins a Call of Duty tournament or something. You guess it’s cool, and you want to be supportive, but secretly you think the whole thing is dumb.